JOIN THE BOOK CLUB
By Alex Ness
September 24, 2025
I am not herein suggesting I know what you need to read. But reading builds better memory, higher literacy, and many more positive things. There are a great many books to choose from, with millions of books in print and out of print every year. Some small number of books sell greatly and succeeded, some books made a small inroad to sales and financial reward and of course, many fail. In 2025, physical books sold twice that number of books and a return financial of less than the amount of 2002, means that more product is happening, but far less will sell, all in a market with far less shelf space, where digital sales are not filling in the blanks for less physical copies sold. This is a disaster, even catastrophic. As such, I plan to offer at least a portion of each new article about books or events in the book world. I hate Ebooks, more for the lack of enjoyment using them, than for the impact upon the industry. I hate them for that too, but...
BOOKs
First a notice about the eventual arrival of a new Cthulhu themed book by Ken St. Andre, writer of Tunnels and Trolls, Monsters! Monsters!, Stormbringer through Chaosium, and Call of Cthulhu. Then a section of books, in different forms, fiction, Ancient Greece, Japan, Russia, non fiction, war, secret agents, defections and nuclear war. Reading is fundamental. So is eating and drinking, so complete your life, buying a book, and eating a sandwich and having a lovely beverage.
Cthulhu on Zimrala by Ken St Andre
Ken St. Andre has a book, and Cthulhu is the hero, or so we are led to think. I don't know much about the book, but it comes out in time for Halloween, and will be found on https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/9559/trollgodfather-press The book features Great Cthulhu versus the Troll God in the setting of the pantheon on the world of Zimrala. There are no observable hero archtypes, but in a world with fear, mania, evil, you go with the lesser evil.
It should go live by end of October. Give it a read and support Ken's work.
A RECENT READING OF MANY BOOKS: 3 sets of 4 books
1, secret plans, traitor? Defectors and Whistleblowers.
Icebreaker by 'Viktor Suvorov'
Using a pen name Suvorov, a defector from the Soviet Union, writes that with previous access to Soviet era files reveal that Josef Stalin had created many events that drove the USSR to attempting to cause Hitler to invade Russia. And he asserts this by demonstrating that nearly all of the war machinery was founded upon the aspect of defending rather than attacking, in nature. Suvorov also believes that the Winter War with Finland was fought and led to the officer purge which forced the Red Army to modernize their military. He wasn't well received in his assertions, but saying none can be proved because there was no evidence found in the opened files of the USSR. But one can easily make a defense by saying we can't find it in the files... unless of course, they were destroyed by authorities who feared post Soviet house cleaning.
The Forgotten Soldier by 'Guy Sajer'
Author Guy Sajer was born in the Alsace Lorraine of the French/German border. He identified far more with his German lineage than French, and the region he came from was mixed thoroughly in culture, being a region passed back and forth in peace treaty agreements. Sajer fought as a patriotic German, not as much a Nazi but he did oppose Marxism. He fought the Russians and also faced Western Allies and surrendered to the British. Who then released him to fight alongside the French.
A MIG to Freedom by No Kum Sok
Happening in the Korean War, Operation Moolah was an American attempt to bribe any North Korean, Chinese or Russian fighter pilots using MiG 15 fighter jets to defect, and turn their jet over for study by the UN. The pilot who defected had no idea what Operation Moolah was. But it helped No Kum Sok become an American and move to the US. His life changed, and the air war over Korea changed as well.
Heroes Muses and the saga of Mordechai Vanunu
Mordechai Vanunu was a nuclear technician and a concerned peace advocate who tried to share the secret information related to the military information at the Nuclear plant at Dimona in Israel. However, Mossad and others caught wind of Vanunu's efforts, and tried to capture him in the act of espionage and spying for various countries. He paid for being caught by being imprisoned for years and years, and then relegated to life in a region covered in police and military personnel, making his freedom, free but only in name. He became a Christian, married a woman from Norway, and has since attempted to immigrate to her homeland, in Norway.
2, great books about ancient events, and the recording of them.
Anabasis by Xenophon
The Greeks excelled in combat. They also had an unusual understanding of being Greek, overall, but aligning with the city-states they came from. But when a betrayal of the leadership during a treaty attempt, isolated and sent them on a retreat of many miles, many foes, and displayed the excellence of Greece, for they acted as one, took votes on decisions and made it to the northern coast of Turkey, where they took ships home to Greece. They lost many, but never lost their forward outlook.
The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer
The former way of remembering history was through poetry that often including art. The Greeks weren't perhaps the very first recorders of history, but they were definitely focused upon the meaning of, and function of poetry. The Iliad and Odyssey does speak of the war between the Greek states and the Kingdom of Troy. The greatness of the book is not solely for the quality and real sounding facts, but for seemingly accurate capturing a historic event and speaking towards the squabbling Greeks, the Trojans and the difficult return home. It is a great work, for the distance from the presence especially so.
The Western Way of War by Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson came from a family of farmers and was a part of his generational understanding of the seasons of growing and the harvest. This is important because it is an observational talent, that allows a growing perspective from the lives led and times that mark high points or collapse. He chose to study how the Greeks changed war, and by doing so led to Democracy. By each man extended a great spear or pike, the fellow next to him had to use his shield to cover the unprotected area of the warrior next to him. And so on. Eventually the Greeks recognized collective defense as being the lesson to learn. The book was an excellent one, and the four books Hanson wrote were similarly good.
Greek Lyrical Poems a collection of 3 poems
Poetry again? Well yes. Greece and many ancient people celebrated poetry for its powerful ability to share information, in a form that can be followed and remembered. My particular interest was the discussion of Archilocus, a warrior poet, who wrote stinging and bitter, humorous and even reflective poems that illustrated the life as a warrior.
3, Japan's legend Miyamoto Musashi, Haruki Murakami's Japanese version of 1984, Sei Shonagon rival to the world's first novelist Lady Murasaki Shikibu, and Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima.
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
The greatest of Samurai, Miyamoto Musashi, spent his life in battles, duels and thinking upon his expertise and the way of swordplay. His writings as well as his actual life with over fifty victories in duels, taught other Samurai and non experts, methods of the path of a great warrior.
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Although this suggests 1984 would be an anchor to the story found in this. However much it evokes it, the story is about two people who cross realities. These alternative worlds and lives meet, and lose track of each other and their own realities and their own family. The questions of reality make this a social dystopia, and deftly told tale about human insanity, and how realities change for reasons of our own flaw, and occasionally via systems created to avoid disaster actually causing the disaster. This a fantastic work.
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
In the imperial court of Japan, there were different roles people played, and roles that were quite unlike the roles they aped in real life. For under the Shogun, he had power. The Emperor had little power, and people in the court played roles wherein the Empire's seat of power did not. The Emperor was served by various women playing roles of etiquette and noble protocols. He was guarded by few, but they looked the role. Sei Shonagon was a woman in waiting, and wrote about life in that Japan, the highest level of woman in the court was Lady Murasaki Shikibu, and she wrote about their petty rivalry, or petulant outlook. The work is insanely powerful as a way to find insight how a beautiful creature held in a jeweled golden cage endures. Her talent is in writing, and it is in focusing upon life in ways that are anything but ordinary.
Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima
The fact that the author Yukio Mishima wrote numerous near autobiographical essays and collections of essays, should have left no reader of his in the doubt that so many were. Here he speaks of a work that presents the life of an author or poet, who trains his body, lifting weights, exercising as a warrior would. He speaks of treating love and attachment as dainty and without power. He thought that anyone seeking to know the truth lives to know reality from a stoic perspective. Stoicism in his mind disallows loving another, and yet, Mishima clearly is writing as clever warrior's voice. That is, even if he hasn't directly said it, Mishima has implied that a warrior or poet, or artist, are all creating, working living, in many relationships, many of them are held together by the love of those who share the journey. Warriors, artist collectives, poet or craft group communities are where one who writes or trains their body, are going through the same process by fire. I never see it as my business to know one's orientation, unless they say things that aim in opposing directions. In that case I want to know why they are able to do that. But Mishima isn't a liar, even if clever, he isn't an artist of a lie, since he confesses who he is. So, perhaps the answer to what a person who distrusts love and attachments, has chosen to let his art exist in the abstract of thought, and he has told you throughout his work, he loves men. He has attractions to women too, but I think he is intellectually dissembling his mind's attractions to men, but his body building refers to his attractions to women, making himself attractive in the perfect form of man. If one reads this, I recommend also reading Confessions of a mask.
LASTLY
If you like how I write and what I write about,
contact me at alexanderness63 At Gmail.com. I'll give you my prices, and
they will all be cheaper than Amazon.
I know it is less certain
ordering through me, than Amazon, but I make nothing through Amazon, I
can sign the copies, and I usually find a price and make it postage
paid. I take paypal and checks.
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